Book ID: CBB863128507

Making a Green Machine: The Infrastructure of Beverage Container Recycling (2011)

unapi

Finn Arne Jørgensen (Author)


Rutgers University


Publication Date: 2011
Physical Details: 206 pages
Language: English

Consider an empty bottle or can, one of the hundreds of billions of beverage containers that are discarded worldwide every year. Empty containers have been at the center of intense political controversies, technological innovation processes, and the modern environmental movement. Making a Green Machine examines the development of the Scandinavian beverage container deposit-refund system, which has the highest return rates in the world, from 1970 to present. Finn Arne Jørgensen investigates the challenges the system faced when exported internationally and explores the critical role of technological infrastructures and consumer convenience in modern recycling. His comparative framework charts the complex network of business and political actors involved in the development of the reverse vending machine (RVM) and bottle deposit legislation to better understand the different historical trajectories empty beverage containers have taken across markets, including the U.S. The RVM has served as more than a hole in the wall--it began simply as a tool for grocers who had to handle empty refillable glass bottles, but has become a green machine to redeem the empty beverage container, helping both business and consumers participate in environmental actions.

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Reviewed By

Review Samantha MacBride (2012) Review of "Making a Green Machine: The Infrastructure of Beverage Container Recycling". Icon: Journal of the International Committee for the History of Technology (pp. 246-247). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB863128507/

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Authors & Contributors
Jørgensen, Finn Arne
Li, Fabiana
Bloomfield, Mandy
Benoit, Andrea
Pedersen, Martin Bae
Bert Winther-Tamaki
Concepts
Consumers and consumerism
Environmental pollution
Recycling (waste disposal)
Environmentalism
Science and culture
Automobiles
Time Periods
21st century
20th century, late
20th century
20th century, early
Places
United States
Norway
Peru
Netherlands
Sweden
Japan
Institutions
Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Berlin
Nuclear Test Ban Treaty; Partial Test Ban Treaty; Limited Test Ban Treaty (1963)
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